This invention relates to a panel assembly for vehicles and, more particularly, to a panel assembly especially adapted for use as a fixed vent window to provide improved weather sealing and appearance and reduced wind noise adjacent a movable window in the vehicle.
In the past, four door sedans and other similar vehicles having movable, roll up windows in the rear doors have provided only limited travel for the windows because of the necessity of configuring the door to extend around the rear wheel well. Large rectangular windows could only be lowered part way because the windows encountered the curved configuration of the door adjacent the wheel well. More recently, however, automobile manufacturers have placed fixed windows known as "vent" windows in the triangular area over the wheel well configuration of the door such that a slightly smaller but rectangular window could be raised and lowered completely in the area forward of the wheel well configuration within the rear door. Typically, such rear fixed vent windows have been built up as composite assemblies from numerous parts during vehicle manufacture. Because of the numerous parts, assemblies have suffered certain styling drawbacks such as inconsistent finish or gloss and a lack of a smooth surface continuity which also tends to create wind noise when the vehicle is in motion. In addition, the multiple parts have allowed water leakage because the parts could not be fitted precisely in all cases.
More recently, fixed vent windows which are molded as a unit have been used. In such windows, an elongated channel is secured by molded material to a sheet of glass configured to the shape of the window area to be closed, the channel also providing a track for the movable window adjacent thereto. Yet, drawbacks have still been experienced with such molded fixed vent windows because of the inability to obtain a tight fit to the vehicle body. This has continued to result in water leakage and undesirable wind noise when the vehicle is in motion. Further, alignment problems with adjacent trim and molding pieces on the vehicle have been experienced along with difficulties in locating and installing such assemblies in the vehicles.
In addition, problems were found during molding these fixed vent windows including inconsistent adhesion of the mold material to the elongated channel member, and "knit" lines or visible seams in the molded material which detracted from the appearance of the finished product.
The present invention was conceived as a solution for these and other problems in panel assemblies for vehicles especially when configured for use as fixed window units.